India is a cricket-crazy nation. The fans are passionate about their players and even losing a World Cup 2023 final did not dampen their spirits as they have already started flocking to the stadiums. As India women start their home season against England, the visiting skipper Heather Knight has said that it will be challenging to silence the Indian crowd when they take on Harmanpreet Kaur-led side at Wankhede Stadium in Mumbai.
"Sometimes you can feel like things are accelerating; rushed actually, when there is crowd and the game is happening quite quickly. We have talked a lot about trying to get our own pace, maintain our concentration in the moment," Knight said ahead of the series opener.
Australia men's team's captain Pat Cummins took pride in silencing the crowd at Narendra Modi Stadium in Ahmedabad on November 17.
"Trying to silence the crowd will be tougher — watching the men’s World Cup it is all you see and the support and the passion that Indian fans have and having experienced that, it is a hard thing to do to silence the crowd and even if there is not many of them they are usually very loud,” the 32-year-old said.
“We have to have quick turnaround, adapting to conditions has to be accelerated a bit. How we do that, how we communicate, how we are going to take 10 wickets, how we are going to score runs?"
Knight who played for Royal Challengers Bangalore (RCB) in the inaugural season of the Women's Premier League (WPL) said that she has some insights about players like Smriti Mandhana, and Shreyanka Patil but it is a double-edged sword.
"It is brilliant that some of the RCB girls have got the chance to play for India on the back of what they did in the WPL. It works both ways, obviously I know those players better and they also know my game better,” Knight said.
England have had an excellent record against India with seven wins from nine games on Indian soil. Also, she feels that the current tour followed by WPL will help her side read the conditions better ahead of the T20 World Cup 2024.
"It feels like a long time actually since we have been to India, before that 2019 series we had a lot of tours here,” she said.
"It is how the Future Tours Programme pans out, and obviously, playing another WPL here in the calendar, there is going to be a lot of cricket here which is brilliant."
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